Editorial: An overblown travel risk

Barbara Toyer, a TSA supervisor, calibrates a walk-through metal detector for use at a security checkpoint at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Dec. 22, 2014.

Barbara Toyer, a TSA supervisor, calibrates a walk-through metal detector for use at a security checkpoint at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Dec. 22, 2014.

Photo: Matt McClain — Washington Post

Photo: Matt McClain — Washington Post

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Barbara Toyer, a TSA supervisor, calibrates a walk-through metal detector for use at a security checkpoint at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Dec. 22, 2014.

Barbara Toyer, a TSA supervisor, calibrates a walk-through metal detector for use at a security checkpoint at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Dec. 22, 2014.

Photo: Matt McClain — Washington Post

Editorial: An overblown travel risk

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Even before the murderous rampage by Islamist extremists in Paris this month, some members of Congress were sounding alarm bells about Islamic State militants using Western passports to enter the United States. Now they may be even more tempted to undermine, suspend or end the visa waiver program that allows nationals of 38 countries to travel to the United States without a temporary visitor’s visa.

“The visa waiver program is the Achilles’ heel of America,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said last week. Terrorists can “come back from training, they go through a visa waiver country, and they come into this country.”

Congress shouldn’t act based on this sort of overstatement.

The visa waiver program allows people from countries including the United Kingdom, Japan, the Czech Republic, Singapore and, yes, France to skip otherwise required pre-visit interviews at U.S. embassies and consulates. It takes a lot less time and money for foreigners in visa waiver countries to visit the United States. About 19 million people from such countries visited the United States in fiscal year 2012 — that’s 40 percent of all international visitors. They conduct business, go to amusement parks, shop at outlet malls — pumping billions into the economy, not to mention the cultural and diplomatic value of cross-border exchange. What’s more, their home countries can’t demand expensive or time-consuming visa procedures of Americans who want to travel overseas.

Against those benefits lies the fear that visa waivers might allow the wrong one or two people into the country. No system can eliminate all risks. But the program isn’t about letting America’s guard down. It demands that visa waiver nations take several security-enhancing steps. Using secure electronic passports, for example, scales back the risk of fraud, as does promptly reporting lost or stolen travel documents. Sharing intelligence with the United States improves the database of people who shouldn’t be allowed to fly. Passengers also have to submit biographical information in advance, which is quickly checked against electronic records. The visa waiver program, in other words, has compelled other countries to improve their security game. The forgone in-person interviews, meanwhile, are likely more useful in catching would-be illegal immigrants than trained terrorists.

The program isn’t perfect. A few old passports out there lack electronic identification features yet have been grandfathered into the system; the United States could stop accepting those. The Department of Homeland Security just made a small change of its own, increasing the amount of information it requires passengers to submit before traveling.

But the nation’s no-fly list system is a much more important line of defense. U.S. leaders should worry more about keeping it up to date and refrain from scaling back the visa waiver program.